Slavery by Another Name History Background

By Nancy OBrien Wagner, Bluestem Heritage Group

Introduction
For more than seventy-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end
of the Civil War, thousands of blacks were systematically forced to work against
their will. While the methods of forced labor took on many forms over those eight
decades peonage, sharecropping, convict leasing, and chain gangs the end
result was a system that deprived thousands of citizens of their happiness, health,
and liberty, and sometimes even their lives.

Though forced labor occurred across the nation, its greatest concentration was in
the South, and its victims were disproportionately black and poor. Ostensibly
developed in response to penal, economic, or labor problems, forced labor was
tightly bound to political, cultural, and social systems of racial oppression.

Setting the Stage: The South after the Civil War

After the Civil War, the Souths economy, infrastructure, politics, and society were
left completely destroyed.

Years of warfare had crippled the Souths economy, and the abolishment of slavery
completely destroyed what was left. The Souths currency was worthless and its
financial system was in ruins. For employers, workers, and merchants, this created
many complex problems. With the abolishment of slavery, much of Southern
planters wealth had disappeared. Accustomed to the unpaid labor of slaves, they
were now faced with the need to pay their workers but there was little cash
available. In this environment, intricate systems of forced labor, which guaranteed
cheap labor and ensured white control of that labor, flourished.

For a brief period after the conclusion of fighting in the spring of 1865, Southern
whites maintained control of the political system. Desperate to recreate the
previous social and economic system and control the movement and freedom of
blacks, the white politicians enacted Black Codes that denied blacks the rights to
testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. In response to
planters demands that the freed people be required to work on the plantations, the
Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be
arrested and hired out to white landowners. Some states limited the occupations
open to blacks and barred them from acquiring land, and others allowed judges to

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assign black children to work for their former owners without the consent of their
parents.

Reconstruction and the Birth of Convict Leasing and Peonage in the South
In 1866, Republicans took control of the Souths political system and, in what
became known as Reconstruction, attempted to rebuild the Souths economy,
politics, and culture.

Radical Republicans created the Freedmens Bureau to offer former slaves food,
clothing, and advice on labor contracts. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments were passed in order to attempt to bring equality to blacks. Initially,
with federal laws and federal troops offering protection, blacks began to vote and
gain political power. The Black Codes were quickly repealed in 1866. But in 1877, in
part because of Northern exhaustion and Southern protests, the federal government
withdrew from the South, and black disenfranchisement and unchecked oppression
quickly followed.

With Southern whites fully in power after the federal government pulled out,
Southern states began to heavily enforce a series of laws that unfairly penalized
poor African Americans for crimes. Pig laws made the theft of a farm animal worth
a dollar punishable by as much as five years in jail. Vagrancy statutes made it a
crime not to have a job or be able to show proof of employment. While these laws
did not specifically mention African Americans, they were rarely enforced for whites.
The result was a huge increase in the number of blacks arrested and convicted and
the rise of the labor system known as convict leasing.

Convict Leasing
Initially, to save money on prison construction and later to actually generate
revenue, Southern states and counties began leasing convicts to commercial
enterprises. Within a few years states realized they could lease out their convicts to
local planters or industrialists who would pay minimal rates for the workers and be
responsible for their housing and feeding, thereby eliminating costs and increasing
revenue. Soon, markets for convict laborers developed, with entrepreneurs buying
and selling convict labor leases. From county courthouses and jails, men were leased
to local plantations, lumber camps, factories and railroads. The convict lease system
became highly profitable for the states.

To employers and industrialists, these men represented cheap, disposable labor.

The costs to lease a laborer were minimal, and the cost of providing housing, food,
clothing and medical treatment could be kept low. Replacement costs were cheap.
Unlike in slavery, there was no incentive to treat a laborer well. (Slaves were
expensive to purchase, but might create new profit by having children who became
more slaves, and could live with a family for generations.)

But for victims and all Southern blacks, convict leasing was a horror. Prisoners were
often transferred far from their homes and families. The paperwork and debt record

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of individual prisoners was often lost, and the men were unable to prove they had
paid their debts and were otherwise assumed they hadnt. Working conditions at
the convict leasing sites were often terrible: illness, lack of proper food, clothing, or
shelter as well as cruel punishments, torture and even death.

Though the profits from convict leasing brought funds to the states coffers, the
public (both Southerners and Northerners) became uncomfortable with the practice
of convict leasing. As part of a series of reforms, Alabama created an office of prison
inspector to oversee conditions for convict laborers. The inspectors described
wretched conditions for convict laborers. New rules for leasing began to require
minimum standards for treatment and rules for punishments. These reforms
brought only modest improvements.

Peonage
Another way that blacks were forced into labor was through a system known as
peonage. Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude, was a system where
an employer compelled a worker to pay off a debt with work. Peonage had been in
use in New Mexico Territory before the Civil War. Although Congress deemed that
peonage was illegal in the Anti-Peonage Law of 1867, the practice began to flourish
in the South after Reconstruction.

A loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment that declared involuntary servitude illegal

except as a punishment for crime was used to ensnare blacks into peonage.

In many cases, defendants were found guilty of real or fabricated crimes and were
fined for both the crime and additional court fees. When the men were unable to pay,
a local businessman would step forward to pay the fines. The convict would then
sign a contract agreeing to work for him without pay until the debt was paid off.

A second method involved a defendant who, when faced with the likelihood of a
conviction and the threat of being sent to a far-off work camp, would confess
judgment, essentially claiming responsibility before any trial occurred. A local
businessman would step forward to act as surety, vouching for the future good
behavior of the defendant, and forfeiting a bond that would pay for the crime. The
judge would accept the bond, without ever rendering a verdict on the crime. The
defendant would then sign a contract agreeing to work without pay until the surety
bond was paid off.

In other cases, workers became indebted to planters (through sharecropping),

merchants (through credit) or company stores (through living expenses). Workers
were often unable to re-pay the debt, and found themselves in a continuous work-
without-pay cycle. Often struck in remote company towns or isolated plantations,
workers were prevented from attempting escape by chains, cells, guards, dogs and
violence. If they did attempt to flee their workplace or the spurious debt, they risked
a very high chance of being picked up, found guilty of abandoning their debts, fined

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court fees, and eventually returned to the same employer or worse, leased to a
convict mine.

There was little interest in prosecuting the employers who abused their forced
laborers: the employers were rich, white, and often politically connected. Worse,
many of the laborers had agreed to their unfair treatment when they had signed
the contracts agreeing to work off their debt. Most were unable to read. Sometimes,
the contracts stated that the men agreed to be locked up, to be physically punished,
and that any expenses due to health care, new clothing, or re-capturing due to an
escape attempt could be added to the total.

Progressivism and the Beginning of the End of Convict Leasing

By the 1890s, blacks in the South were suffering the worst treatment they had
endured since the end of the Civil War. After the Supreme Courts 1896 Plessy v.
Ferguson decision, segregation became even more ensconced through a battery of
Southern laws and social customs known as Jim Crow. Schools, theaters,
restaurants and transportation cars were segregated. Poll taxes, literacy
requirements and grandfather clauses not only prevented blacks from voting, but
also made them ineligible to serve in jury pools or run for office. Separate but
equal wasnt just an unspoken custom, but a formal law.

Meanwhile, a new social and political movement was growing in the North. In
response to significant economic, social, and political inequalities, progressivism
advocated that the government should lead efforts to change societys ills. When
President Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, progressivism became a powerful
national movement. He advocated for fair trade and pro-labor laws, including a
decreased workweek, child labor restrictions and workplace safety rules.

Roosevelts attitudes on race fluctuated, though he was generally considered a

moderate during his era. As governor of New York, he ended school segregation. As
president, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, a black civil rights leader, to
dine at the White House. The resulting uproar over the perceived impropriety
appeared to restrain Roosevelt, who never repeated the invitation. However, he did
continue to advocate for a square deal for all citizens, appointing progressive
judges and encouraging the prosecution of peonage.

While progressive leaders often focused on the needs of the poor and immigrants,
they did not organize to promote black suffrage or equal rights. However, many
black activists, journalists, and thinkers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, and the members of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) fought for
civil rights.

During this time, dramatic stories of the abuse and wretched conditions of convict
laborers began to be publicized through trials and newspaper accounts. The
egregiousness of the violence and corruption of the system began to turn public
opinion against convict leasing. Public outrage over scandalous tales of abuse led

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Tennessee to stop leasing convicts to coal mines in 1893, and to stop all leasing to
other industries by 1896. South Carolina (1897), Louisiana (1901), Mississippi
(1907), Georgia (1908), Arkansas (1913) and Florida (1923) followed suit.

Public concern about eliminating convict leasing did not reflect a desire to create
political, economic, or social equality for blacks. In fact, during this time, new laws
made private peonage even easier to establish. In Alabama, where convict leasing
persisted, changes to contract labor laws ensnared more men into peonage.
Previously, if a worker skipped out after receiving an advance, an employer had to
prove that fraud had always been the workers intention. A new 1903 law no longer
required any evidence of bad intention by the worker; instead, any white employer
could claim a black worker had taken an advance and not repaid it, and Alabama
courts would not accept black workers testimony in court. Georgia passed a similar
law in 1903 and Florida in 1907.

Throughout the 1920s, a series of sensational crimes and trials brought attention to
the pockets of convict leasing and peonage that remained. By 1928, Alabama
became the final state to eliminate convict leasing by the state.

Chain Gangs
Though many Southern citizens and politicians wanted to abolish convict leasing,
the problem of the expense and difficulty of housing convicts remained. Chain gangs
developed as a popular solution to that problem. Chain gangs were groups of
convicts forced to labor at tasks such as road construction, ditch digging, or farming
while chained together. The improvements they made to public roadways had
significant impact on rural areas, allowing planters to more quickly and easily
transport their crops to market.

Chain gangs minimized the cost of guarding prisoners, but exposed prisoners to
painful ulcers and dangerous infections from the heavy shackles around their ankles.
An individuals misstep or fall could imperil the entire group, and chains prevented
individuals from moving away from aggressive or violent prisoners.

The Final Chapter of Forced Labor

Across the South, new technologies and shifting economic patterns decreased
peonage. The dust bowl and Great Depression shifted many sharecroppers off their
land. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected, he instituted his New Deal, a
series of economic programs intended to offer relief to the unemployed and
recovery of the national economy. Though blacks were not the intended audience
for these programs, they benefitted as many citizens did. Labor laws that
encouraged union organization and defined a minimum wage also supported black
workers. However, peonage remained generally hidden in the rural counties of
Southern states. In 1940, with the help of the International Labor Defense (ILD), a
group of people in New York and Chicago organized the Abolish Peonage Committee
and began to pressure the Justice Department to try cases.

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In 1941, in response to the outbreak of World War II and amid fears that racial
inequalities would be used as antiUnited States propaganda, Attorney General
Francis Biddle issued Circular No. 3591 to all federal prosecutors, instructing them
to actively investigate and try more peonage cases. Finally, the federal government
was willing to act aggressively to protect all its citizens from this forced labor.

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